Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The Mentalist - Recap & Review - Red Brick and Ivy

The Mentalist"Red Brick and Ivy "

Original Air Date: Dec 16, 2008.

Liz - TwoCents Reviewerliz@thetwocentscorp.com

A top scientist, Alexander Nelson, is dead, poisoned by hydrogen cyanide, and his ex-wife, Sophie Miller, looks good for the crime. Why do we care, you ask? Because this ex-wife is also Patrick Jane's former psychiatrist. That's right, Patrick Jane had a crazy-go-nuts episode, and I only make light of it because Jane made a Star Wars joke in avoidance of the matter. Mental breaks are no laughing matter.

3 comments:

A top scientist, Alexander Nelson, is dead, poisoned by hydrogen cyanide, and his ex-wife, Sophie Miller, looks good for the crime. Why do we care, you ask? Because this ex-wife is also Patrick Jane's former psychiatrist. That's right, Patrick Jane had a crazy-go-nuts episode, and I only make light of it because Jane made a Star Wars joke in avoidance of the matter. Mental breaks are no laughing matter.

Then again, neither are animals rights violations, or animal rights groups. At Leland University, Alexander's colleagues, including Sophie and Dr. Stutzer, are trying to cure evil. I almost expected this to be like that episode of House where Cameron asked if they were going to cure death, and House laughed maniacally and then added, "I doubt it," but they are dead serious. (No pun intended.) By manipulating the section of the brain that controls and informs morality, they believe they can "cure" evil people. The fact that they can also make good people bad was only briefly mentioned, but I think the lessons of Frankenstein apply here: just because you can doesn't mean that you should. They have been testing on animals, including a very friendly chimp named Suzie, who the treatment has worked on, but have also recently begun experimenting on humans.

An animal rights activist who looks somewhat like Dwight Schrute if you added about forty pounds and forty cats tries to take credit for killing Nelson, but it's pretty obvious that he didn't do it when he neatly avoids Cho's question about what kind of poison was used. Lisbon still wants to look at Sophie Miller, but Patrick is adamant that she hasn't lied. So they visit the widow, Emily Nelson, who Patrick describes as "not able to kill someone unless they told her to in a firm voice." Emily Nelson stands up about as well as a limp rag, but she does provide some important information. She overheard Alexander on the phone a couple of weeks ago with work, having an argument about someone named Rosie.

Patrick and Lisbon move to question Carrie Sheen, another person who worked on the project, and was also shaking the sheets with Nelson. When they arrive she is dead, an apparent suicide -- or was it? Patrick is still sure that Sophie has nothing to do with the murders, but they ask more questions anyway because she is the only obvious suspect left. Lisbon asks Sophie about "Rosie" while they are questioning her at the lab, and the chimp in the cage goes ape. (Pun intended.) Patrick has one of his moments, you can practically see the lightbulb go on over his head. When he and Sophie speak alone, he guesses that the chimp in the cage is the Rosie in question -- because Suzie never got gentle. The treatment never worked. Sophie confirms this, and confesses that they have been falsifying information for almost a year to maintain the reputation of Dr. Stutzer and the college. Patrick really looks fit to burst, though, when he tells Sophie, "You thought you could manipulate me into exonerating you." For not having a problem with manipulating people for his ends, Patrick really gets ticked when someone plays him like a penny whistle.

Down into the last ten minutes, I was worrying about this getting solved, but I should have known better than that. Patrick fakes getting the okay from their superior, and so it begins.

Sophie runs to Dr. Stutzer saying the morality engine is working, because she did something with something. Anyway, Patrick is sitting in the machine to demonstrate, and he demonstrates having his morality "manipulated" while managing to answer questions like, "Eating people is wrong, true or false?" with a straight face. Whilst the scientists are patting themselves on the back, Patrick walks out. They follow him, panicking because his morality hasn't be recalibrated, so now we have an evil Patrick walking about. I imagine there are some who would argue there is no difference. Anyway, he pulls a gun and demands to know who killed Alex and Carrie. He "shoots" Sophie to show he means business, and then threatens further if they do not comply. The college's chancellor, in a moment of self-preservation, confesses to the crime. But it is not all a happy ending -- Stutzer's life work is impossible, and Jane does not get to drive the SUV home.

This episode was kind of lackluster for me while I was watching it, but the more I reflected, the more brilliant it was. Once again, we get backstory without it being anvilicious or dropped on us in expository dialogue -- we are shown rather than told, and that is a great thing. I think the real touch of brilliance was one shot of flashback inside the mental hospital, you couldn't see the whole thing, but on one wall you could just see where Patrick had drawn Red John's eerie, signature smiley face.

Touching on the issue of morality was complementary to the theme of two weeks ago, vengeance. Patrick says, "Good people do good things. Bad people do bad things." We know the world isn't quite so black and white as this, but do you think Patrick really believes that? It fits with his view of vengeance -- that revenge would be the only thing satisfying, and that morality isn't a scale, it's an absolute. But on the other hand, we see examples in Patrick himself. I wouldn't call Patrick a bad person, but there are certainly times when he says or does something especially insensitive, and as I said before he has no trouble manipulating people to meet his ends. He's generally arrogant and obnoxious, but again, none of those necessarily make a bad person.

I will probably watch it again ASAP, as I have a feeling that there was a lot I missed because of how I felt during the episode. I bet we have to wait until after the holidays for a new episode though. Bummer. Happy Holiday of your choice from me!